What games are you playing now?

December 31st, 2008, 18:15

I have 14 days until school opens up again, times that I was planning to spend on games. I just haven't decided which to play.

I have finished all the newer games except for Tomb Raider Underworld which I placed on hold for some time. Then I had planned to play The Witcher Enhanced Edition, but it's sold out in every store I tried.

I have a list of old titles which I have "saved" for later, so I might get into some of those. I just havn't decided which yet. There are also a couple of titles on my "planned list", which I planned before reviewers teared the title apart.

— Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

Originally Posted by JDR13
There was a time when RPG's did take a backseat to other genres in graphics, but I really don't think that's true to a large degree anymore. More modern crpgs such as Oblivion, Gothic 3, and Fallout 3 come very close to matching the best graphics of games from any other genre.

Those are action-oriented games that ape the FPS / TPS style and attempt immersion through graphical verisimilitude, so it is necessary that they have excellent graphics.

Originally Posted by JDR13
As far as the "I prefer graphics to gameplay / story" comment, I haven't seen that said or implied by anyone here. Just that it's nice to be able to have them all.

What I am saying is that it is impossible to say 'I support indies' while also saying 'I won't play some of the best games of the past several years until they change their business model to include a large staff and budget of perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in order to change nothing but the graphics up to a level I consider acceptable.

And Sammy, I'm not trying to be superior in any way, I am just engaging in a discussion of the prioritization of graphics and gameplay. My position isn't 'right' even by my own estimation. It is just mine.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Those are action-oriented games that ape the FPS / TPS style and attempt immersion through graphical verisimilitude, so it is necessary that they have excellent graphics.

They are CRPG's none the less. I don't understand what orientation has to do with anything.

Besides, it isn't necessary for them to have excellent graphics. I'm sure it helps, but it's not a make or break issue. The first 2 Gothic games are great examples, they certainly didn't have killer graphics, nor did they try to immerse you solely through visuals.

Originally Posted by txa1265
What I am saying is that it is impossible to say 'I support indies' while also saying 'I won't play some of the best games of the past several years until they change their business model to include a large staff and budget of perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in order to change nothing but the graphics up to a level I consider acceptable.

I respect what you're saying there Mike, but the problem is that not everyone shares the opinion that those are "some of the best games of the past several years".

Originally Posted by JDR13
It was a combination of art direction, music, AI, storyline, and overall atmosphere that made Gothic stand out to me.

Yet the controls were crappy to the point that any folks never played the games. IMO they have as much to call say that it is unforgivable for a developer to make a game with such useless controls and that the game isn't worth playing because of it. Most of us struggled through until the controls became second nature and feel that the end justified the means.

As for Spiderweb, I can certainly understand those who complain that there is too much of a sameness between iterations, but think that playing at least one of the Geneforge and Avernum games is worthwhile for anyone claiming to like the RPG genre.

I've started playing Mount & Blade again, at first with the Hundred Years War mod, but ran into a bug and am playing with the Chronicles of Talera mod. It's really nice, but I'm not so good at it, so it's hard too.

It's your opinion tho, Mike (apparently the "golden standard" of opinions) of what is good and what is not good. What the qualities of being "good" are, and what it is not. On one hand you say youre not picking a fight, but it's like you have some "more rpg than thou" type of attitude, you time and time again keep coming back to this in several threads beating this drum looking for a fight. Now there's some absolutes apparently that just are, in your rpg godliness, well.. absolute. "Spiderweb games are great" is one of them. Ive insulted one of your holy grails, and your chain mail's all in a bunch. Now I dont claim to support indies or anyone else, that's not why I play games, to write someone's meal ticket. I'll give my money to whoever's product I like and find worthy of purchase.

I'm the kinda gamer who will use lesser equipment if it looks nice on my character, single or multiplayer game. I dont number crunch to get the perfect stats/abilities/ whatever when leveling, I make what I deem to be a reasonable choice in my allocation of points and such and roll w/ it. I'm there to have fun, to enjoy the experience. I like being happy w/ the overall presentation of a game, to enjoy the world that I'm in. Graphics are to an extent part of the gameplay for me. Ive explained this time and time again to you. They dont have to be cutting edge, they dont have to be state of the art, I'm not asking for a fucking rembrandt here, but I dont want to play something that looks like (in my opinion) crap.

I'm sorry if you just cannot fathom or accept that. Move on w/ your life already

— I dont dislike people - I just like them better when theyre not around

Originally Posted by JDR13
Not really. They definitely had good graphics- but not the kind that had people going "OMG!".

Again: That may be true for the much later US release. However, when Gothic was originally released in Germany in March 2001 it had cutting edge, kickass, ipwnu graphics .
2001 was the time of claustrophobic Quake 3 engine games which all had lovely interiors but the Q3 engine wasn't really good at rendering outdoor areas in any reasonable quality or performance.
This is where Gothic stood out. The viewing distance in the first Gothic combined with the awesome overall world detail was something that was never seen before in a game.
And it was very demanding as well. You needed top of the line hardware to run the game at max detail. Gothic definitely was a state of the art game that was pushing the boundaries of what was possible in terms of graphical detail back in the day.

It was a combination of art direction, music, AI, storyline, and overall atmosphere that made Gothic stand out to me.

Yes, exactly. What really blew me away was the "simulation" aspects of Gothic, especially the NPC schedules who would really go sit at a campfire, go to bed and go to work etc. - The very high quality of the graphics (back in the day) certainly helped very, very much to emphasize the sim-like feel. This is an example where I'd 100% go with Sammy in saying that graphics can be or are actually a part of the gameplay. In cases like Gothic that is definitely true (for me at least).

I will never understand why so many people insisted that the controls in Gothic were bad. I can honestly say that it took me less than 30 minutes to become completely comfortable with them. I would even say the controls in Gothic are quite good. I attribute the complaints to pure laziness. Most likely these are the same people who won't play a flight sim because it's "too complicated".

I even chose to use the Gothic 1 control scheme when I played Gothic 2.

@xSamhainx and txa1265, Maybe we should all just take a deep breath and calm down, it's starting to get a littly chippy here. I think we might have misunderstood each other a little bit. Different strokes for different folks.

just for the record i though the orginal gothic when it first came out was a graphic phenomenom, the only game comprable in scope in that time frame was ultima ix and that didn't have anything on gothic in most categories.

currently playing-mass effect
after putting fallout 3 character 2 on hold 'til the downloadable stuff, i purchased mass effect for the 2nd time. I originallly bought it in July and was the first game ever i had to return after taking an act of god to get it installed correctly and then not being able to get past the loading screen i chanted the most known gamer anthem "fuck ea".

decided to give it another go after a $20 investment this time. It plays now but crashes and needs a restart about every 20-30 minutes like clockwork. i guess those "games for windows" stamps really do mean something, since this one lacks one.

prognosis is what i expected so far—typical bioware. this of course is not a bad thing, in fact it must be pretty good considering i've kept at and am about to embark from citadel (not citadel station) and its been entertaing.

i love exploring 3-d space settings and there's not a whole to choose in the rpg department. could turn out to be my favourite bioware game, but still i think its pretty lame how bad it runs many peoples pcs, maybe they should have waited longerer to port it like they've done with all there other console games.

No gaming today as I did a harddrive update. I managed to squeeze another CPU in my now ancient Asus Striker Extreme motherboard, Q9550 instead of Q6600. I also finally upgraded from Soundblaster 2ZS Pro Platinum (bought back in 2004) to a simple Soundblaster X-Fi gamer edition. I jumped from 2 to 4gb of memory, of which WinXP can read 3gb.

The largest update was the tower, which was the real point with the whole upgrade really. I have had problems with my graphiccards overheating so I decided to grab one that had support for a major amount of 14cm fans a long with a more intelligent design when installing new stuff. I ended up with a ThermalTake Armor+. All in all I was satisfied, except with a cable issue with the default fans that didn't fit my fancontroller, something I might be able to fix with a couple of adapters. For now I cannot change the fanspeed, meaning I have to survive some extra noise for a day or two. Finally the toolless system for plugging in PCI and PCI-E devices wasn't good. At least plugging in new harddrives and 5" devices is now a bliss.

With the tower I decided to get myself a Corsair HX1000W PSU. I do not need 1000W really but that particular PSU had got some insane reviews so I decided to go for that one. My old PSU and Tower are 5 years old. Most interestingly was the new 80 Plus standard meaning it takes care of the incoming power in a more power efficient manner.

Not very surprising, the upgrade causing me the greatest headache and constant bluescreens before I got the drivers installed, was the soundblaster… I hate the demonic force that Creative have been corrupted into.

— Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
"Spiderweb games are great" is one of them. Ive insulted one of your holy grails, and your chain mail's all in a bunch. Now I dont claim to support indies or anyone else, that's not why I play games, to write someone's meal ticket. I'll give my money to whoever's product I like and find worthy of purchase.

First let me apologize - with my limited access to the Watch I really didn't realize I was thread-hopping. I'm not on a zealot's crusade. I was honestly surprised since you are the one I blame ( ) for introducing FastCrawl, a $20 gem with extremely limited scope and graphics.

I hold SpiderWeb games as no 'holy grail' by any stretch - they are just a recognizable placeholder of the basic indie concept: delivering core strengths to niche appeal, limited graphics. In fact, when my list of best games of '07 was up, my Indie game of the year was Eschalon over Avernum and Geneforge. I like Jeff's games, and while I *did* state that Avernum 4 was better than Oblivion, none of that stuff is even in my top 25.

I again apologize for being a pain in the a$$ and for any appearances of lording my opinion over others. I certainly have had my share of 'being in the wrong' in these forums, so I don't think my opinion is "all that".

Originally Posted by txa1265
Oh - and as for now playing, my netbook got some additions:
- System Shock 2
- Hexplore
- Sacred Gold
I started them all, but am still focused on Arcanum.

I love System Shock 2, one of the most atmospheric games ever. A lot of old-timers claim it was a step back from SS1, but I consider it to be on par with the original. Is it your first time playing?

I recently tried Sacred for the first time after seeing some of the discussion about Sacred 2. I found it mildly entertaining for a little while, but quickly grew tired of clicking my mouse button 100 times per minute. I never was a big fan of that style of game though….

Just purchased both NOLF games off Amazon, I've decided to give them another try. Lord knows you've raved about them enough in the past.

Oh man, the NOLF games were great… in style, artwork, voiceacting, story etc. Gameplay were pretty good too.

— Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

Originally Posted by JemyM
No gaming today as I did a harddrive update. I managed to squeeze another CPU in my now ancient Asus Striker Extreme motherboard, Q9550 instead of Q6600. I also finally upgraded from Soundblaster 2ZS Pro Platinum (bought back in 2004) to a simple Soundblaster X-Fi gamer edition. I jumped from 2 to 4gb of memory, of which WinXP can read 3gb.
……………………………….

Eh, Asus Striker Extreme motherboard is quite new, just about 1 year+ i think. What you gonna do with your replaced peripherals?

Congrats for the upgraded system BTW. I would probably do that late this year when Windows 7 is out.

I re-popped Final Fantasy XII into the PS2 and started to clean up, i.e., finish the mob hunt quests. Tried to finish some other unfinished games in the meantime, but astonishingly enough they couldn't compare to FFXII.